Cody Bellinger’s concerning Yankees struggles come with uncharacteristic wrinkle

Diagnosing what is wrong with the Yankees lineup begins with Aaron Judge’s absence and includes Giancarlo Stanton’s injury. Their catchers’ collective .176 batting average and .521 OPS play a large role. So does Paul Goldschmidt’s recent 0-for-34 skid.

As recently as Sunday, Jazz Chisholm Jr. acknowledged he has “sucked all season” (although he has not since making this admission). They have not received enough offensively from the left side of their infield.

A bit more quietly, Cody Bellinger has been a below-average hitter for two and a half months.

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A strong candidate to step up in a lineup missing a pair of sluggers, Bellinger instead has continued a long offensive slide.

Way back on May 7, Bellinger was hitting .299 with a .924 OPS and five home runs in his first 37 games. Combined with his defensive excellence and flexibility, you did not have to squint too hard to see Bellinger making a case for MVP on a team with Judge and Ben Rice.

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But since that high-water mark, Bellinger owns the same OPS (.662) as Anthony Volpe does in his career.

For 61 games — in which the Yankees are 30-31 — he has hit just .229 and added just six home runs. His expected numbers in the span are better than his actual ones, but he has struggled regardless.

“I’ve been through it and just got to continue to stick to your plan. Got to stay positive,” Bellinger said at the All-Star Game, where his two-run single made him MVP, when asked about his slump. “This game’s hard.”

More recently, the issue has involved far more strikeouts than the Yankees and Bellinger are used to seeing. Re-signed in part because of his contact skills and knowledge about when to unleash a big hack and when to shorten up, Bellinger has struck out 20 times in his past 17 games and 70 plate appearances while walking just three times.

His strikeout rate in that span is 28.6 percent. Last season that mark sat at 13.7 percent.

“Probably a little more swing and miss in there,” manager Aaron Boone said recently of Bellinger. “I feel like a lot of the balls he’s getting in the air, it’s like, ‘Ooh, just missed.’ He’s hit some balls decent to center, decent to left, even decent to right.”

There are signs of hope for a player locked up on a $162.5 million deal. He has reached base four times in the past two games.

Even one of his outs during Monday’s victory over the Pirates was well struck, a hard ground ball up the middle that was aimed directly at the shortstop.

If Bellinger escapes the depths of this slide and joins a suddenly on-fire Chisholm, the wait for Judge to return would be far more manageable for the Yankees.

“He’s fouling some pitches that I feel like he’s getting a pitch to hit, maybe he’s fouling it off or he’s just missing it in the air,” Boone said of Bellinger, whose OPS has fallen from .813 last year to .760. “The difference between success and scuffling is razor-thin sometimes. But he’ll get it going.”

Fans who had tickets to Tuesday’s game can use them for Game 2 on Wednesday (scheduled to start at 7:05 p.m.), with the regularly scheduled day game now beginning at 1:05 p.m.